Postal activity does not only cover the activities of La Poste, the
historical operator, but includes the activities of all courier companies,
delivery companies, direct marketing companies, as well as those of private
operators. The postal/courier sector involves around 310,000 people in France.
Regulations
At present, only the transport and delivery of "letters" are held
in a monopoly. All other postal/courier activities are totally open to
competition. The limits and the characteristics of the monopoly will be
redefined, at national level, when the European
directive on postal services is adopted.
The postal sector is traditionally made up of four main markets:
correspondence, parcel deliveries, transport of newspaper and advertising
literature.
The correspondence market has become highly competitive with the
development of fax and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), as well as that of
computer messaging systems. 1994 saw a decrease in the number of objects sent,
especially letters of less than 20g.
The parcel market - entirely deregulated - has seen stiffer
competition with the development of the "single parcel" segment where
private operators were largely inactive up to now. Express delivery services
require investment (most notably in computerisation) and specific organisation.
Newspaper delivery is a competitive market, with little growth. It
consists of retail sales on a per issue basis (68% approximately), or by
subscription; for this second possibility, door-to-door delivery is tending to
expand (around 20% for daily newspapers).
The advertising literature market was, until recently, notable for
its rapid growth in terms of the number of objects sent, in 1994 it showed signs
of slowing down, especially in the area of addressed literature.
Total annual revenues for postal/courier activities is over 70 billion
French francs of which 62.46 billion were made by La Poste in 1994 ("Financial
Elements 1994 - La Poste").
La
Poste (French Post Office)
La Poste has been a state-owned company since 1 January 1991. It is no
longer a government body.
La Poste is the third largest French state-owned service company after the
Electricity company (EDF) and France Telecom.
La Poste has two main activities: postal services and financial services. La
Poste has 287,000 employees (La Poste press release - June 1995) of which about
26,000 work in the financial services sector.
In 1994, La Poste had a total turnover of 81.5 billion French francs,
three-quarters of which came from the postal services sector ("Financial
Elements 1994 - La Poste").
La Poste is free to set tariffs for its services which are open to
competition. It is required simply to communicate details of intended
modifications to tariffs to the regulatory authorities before the modifications
come into force.
For reserved services - that is to say essentially letters - any revision to
tariffs must be approved by the State. Moreover, the contractual plan between La
Poste and the Government, signed in 1994, stipulated that the evolution of
tariffs for reserved services will remain on average less than or equal to the
consumer price index for the period 1995-1997.
. Philatelic programme
. News from previous months
. Regulations and economic situation